Permits Issued for Six-Unit Building at 2406 North 2nd Street in West Kensington

Permits have been issued for the construction of a three-story, six-unit apartment building at 2406 North 2nd Street in West Kensington. The development will replace a vacant site on the west side of the street, located just to the north of the intersection of North 2nd and West York streets. The attached structure will span a footprint of 1,564 square feet, and its planned 6,256-square-foot interior yields an average of just over 1,000 square feet per unit. The development will feature a cellar and roof decks. Permits list 2406 N 2nd Street LLC as the owner, Nicholas Coulter of KCA Design Associates as the architect, and 3L Homes LLC as the contractor. Construction costs are specified at $642,000.

2406 North 2nd Street. Credit: Google Maps

The development is located near the border between Kensington and North Philadelphia, and, depending on definition, may be described as belonging to either area. Like many other sites throughout the neighborhood hard-hit by the postwar advent of depopulation and demolitions, the lot currently sits vacant and overgrown with grass. However, the vacancy is relatively recent, as a three-story rowhouse and a garage graced the site until around 2010.

2406 North 2nd Street. Looking west. September 2009. Credit: Google Maps

Although vacant lots and abandoned buildings continue to persist throughout the neighborhood, its fortunes have been turning around in recent years. A particular flurry of proposal activity has been taking place along American Street, located two short blocks to the west of the building proposed at 2406 North 2nd Street.

Notably, residents of the property’s future west-facing apartments will be able to see a large mural, painted some time between 2007 and 2009, graces the blank wall of graces the blank wall of a five-story industrial building at 2411 North American Street, located directly behind the proposal site. We expect that lot to see a development announcement in the near future, although we hope that whatever gets built at the site would not obscure the mural, where it may perhaps be preserved in public view via a plaza similar to the one planned at Mural West or through some other type of open space.

2406 North 2nd Street. Looking northwest. Credit: Google Maps

Mural at 2411 North American Street. Looking north. Credit: Google Maps

The proposal site at 2406 North 2nd Street sits within a five- to seven-minute minute walk to the Front Street commercial corridor, the York-Dauphin Station on the Market-Frankford Line, Norris Square Park, and the Episcopal Campus of Temple University Hospital. Temple University’s main campus may be reached via a 25-minute walk to the southwest.

Subscribe to YIMBY’s daily e-mail

Follow YIMBYgram for real-time photo updates
Like YIMBY on Facebook
Follow YIMBY’s Twitter for the latest in YIMBYnews